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First off, I have a separate UVB lamp, so this is purely about heat for basking...

I adopted Toby and he came with a heat lamp. I have no clue what brand it is, it's just a black 5.5" clamp-style lamp that is rated for 75 watts and 120 volts. It came with a bulb that burned out a few weeks ago, after being used for at least a year with the previous owner. I threw that bulb out and forgot to see what kind it was. I went to PetCo and bought a Zoo Med Turtle Tuff Splashproof Halogen Lamp (75 w, 120 v). Today, I went to turn the heat lamp on and the bulb was burned out! (I took the bulb out and shook it to make sure it was the bulb and not the lamp). It only lasted 2-3 weeks!!! And it wasn't cheap!

So my questions are... Should I invest in a new heat lamp? Are there better/cheaper bulbs I can use? I read in some forums that you can use regular household incandescent bulbs, is this true?

I don't know much about heat lamps/bulbs so any info would be great! Thanks!

For heat, using a regular incandescent light, along with a UVB light (which also provides UVA rays) is fine. Use a wattage that will get the basking area temp in the range of 88-90F.

BTW, do you still have the box and the receipt that the bulb came in? If you do, I'd take the bulb back to Petco and get another one (I used to return red heat bulbs to them that stopped working not long after I bought them). You could use that one until it burns out and then switch to regular lightbulbs if you wanted to.

For heat, I just use a regular 100w incandescent bulb which keeps it around 88-90 degrees.

Thanks, I'm going to go to Wal-Mart today and try a regular incandescent bulb. My lamp will only take up to 75w, so hopefully that will get hot enough.

Sadly, I already got rid of the box from the Zoo Med bulb and I don't think I have the receipt still, although I'm going to double-check. Lesson learned on that one, I will now always save the box/receipt for things like that!

If you've got room, you might want to invest in a bigger clamp lamp---5.5 inches is a small dome, and a 75-watt rating isn't much.

With any product that's fragile and/or expensive or has a warranty, it's good to save the receipt and box (you can break it down so that it's flat and doesn't take up much room) until you're sure it's not going to be needed. It has saved me mucho dinero.

I've got just a regular clamp lamp, with a max rating of 60 W. The 60 watt bulb keeps the basking temperature at 90-95. Depending on how far it is from the basking area, I think a regular 75 watt bulb will be just fine

If you don't have the receipt, one of my UVB bulbs burned out after only a month of use, I still had the box, so I took it back to PetSmart and said I didn't have the receipt and they didn't care. They replaced it. Thank goodness! (Nothing else, you can buy a new one, and then take back the old one using the new box and the receipt ...)

Thanks for all the help/info! I went out and bought a regular GE 75w incandescent light. My lamp is pretty close to the basking area, so the temperature is perfect with it. And the big surprise is that Toby LOVES it! As soon as I put the new bulb in and left the room, he was up on his rock basking. He seems to bask a lot more now with this light, I don't know why? It's the same temp as with the previous 2 bulbs that I had. It could also just be a coincidence because he is also currently shedding some of his shutes.

Also I found the receipt for the light I got at PetCo so I'm going to try to take it back/exchange it tomorrow.

Thanks again guys!